Endangered species and flawed research

In the latest issue of the journal Conservation Biology UC Davis conservation biologists, professors Tim Caro, John Eadie and Andrew Sih examine the research practice of using surrogate animals to predict what is endangering another species. The authors say population disturbances affect common and rare species in different ways and advocate making every possible effort to examine the target species directly before resorting to substitute species.
Flagship substitutes are often chosen because they are biologically similar to the troubled species or can be used to develop a predictive model.